When Radio One phoned me last week looking for venues and bands to recommend for a series of warm up gigs across North Wales for their Big Weekend in Bangor next month, it was more Yikes than Yippee. Where once we were awash with talent and completely spoilt for choice, the credit crunching Musical Recession has hit the area harder than others. There’s nowhere to play and no one to play to. Venue4Events is undergoing licence changes in Bleak City and is out of action; although the place did bow out with a bang thanks to the Fudged reunion. I did think of the Morville (also in Rhyl), but why give somewhere a jab in the arm when they don’t support live music normally? So I popped along to Speakers Corner, one of the most unlikely venues, particularly as it used to be a shoe shop.